Common State Standards for CTE
Thursday, 28 June 2012 15:05
Common state standards are nothing new to the field of education, but until recently one area did not have a set of standards to call their own: Career and Technical Education. With guidance from the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, or NASDCTEc, the standards were created as the result of input from people working in education and business throughout 42 states.
The standards are divided into 16 career clusters that represent different areas of industry. They also incorporate a set of 12 “career-ready practices” that describe the knowledge and skills students should develop in order to be successful in the workforce. Those career-ready practices are as follows:
Act as a responsible and contributing citizen and employee
Apply appropriate academic and technical skills
Attend to personal health and financial well-being
Communicate clearly, effectively and with reason
Consider the environmental, social and economic impacts of decisions
Demonstrate creativity and innovation
Employ valid and reliable research strategies
Utilize critical thinking to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
Model integrity, ethical leadership and effective management
Plan education and career path aligned to personal goals
Use technology to enhance productivity
Work productively in teams while using cultural/global competence